Sensing Murder

Sensing Murder, where self-acclaimed psychics attempt to divine the fates of missing people, will return to New Zealand television screens again in 2017.

The show gives psychics photos of missing – presumed dead – people and asks them to discover their fates.

Not once has this had any measurable impact. Police have confirmed that in four seasons of the show, no tips from a psychic have led to a case being solved.

Not just that: they’ve demonstrably offered incorrect findings.

And last time around, programme makers turned down an offer worth up to $400,000 from Wanaka tourist entrepreneur Stuart Landsborough to have the psychics’ work independently tested and evaluated.

Between them, the psychics have no scientific or legal qualification, no formal investigatory experience, nothing to single them out from me, you or your pet dog in being worthy to solve crimes, and indeed to solve them on primetime television. That being so, I could go on the next season of Sensing Murder and be just as much use to them in finding out whodunnit.

The show is an insult to the police, for these are usually cases they have spent many years and plenty of resources trying to solve.

It’s an insult to the families, whether they have co-operated or not, to re-open new wounds and win publicity and acclaim from their pain.

It’s an insult to New Zealand television audiences that they be expected to swallow such patent rubbish.

The only people to benefit are the psychics, who get free publicity to drive their businesses. By the way, I’m not saying they don’t genuinely believe they have some sort of ability to help. I’m saying those in charge shouldn’t humour that delusion.

I couldn’t agree more. It is appalling TVNZ puts on such a show, which just exploits the pain of victims of crime.

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Comments (49)

Manolo

Mobile Michael

Let me preface this by saying that this universe is stranger than we think, but I place psychics in the same category as broken clocks – they’re occassionally right, but that’s just coincidence.

If families are so desperate that they are grasping at straws then so be it – but if it’s solely for entertainment and the families are not fully involved then TV producers are crossing an ethical line.

eszett

Here’s what a decent TV station would do:

Rolf Erik Eikemo, a Norwegian man who should have been in the prime of his life, instead succumbed to cancer last year. But he will live on — at least on Google — because he agreed to a very cool experiment proposed by the TV show Folkeopplysningen (Public Education).

Editors of that program, which frequently takes aim at superstition and woo, heard that Eikemo’s days were numbered, and got in touch to ask him if he would write a secret message on a piece of paper, seal it in an envelope, and put it in a safe.
The idea was that after Eikemo died, psychics from around the world would be given the chance to either remote-view the note via paranormal means, or would somehow get inside the deceased’s head to learn what he had scribbled.

With Eikemo gone, some 2,000 people from around the world participated in the challenge, e-mailing the TV makers with what they thought they’d been able to glean. Many had obviously googled the man and gambled that he’d left a note of consolation to his children (wrong). Others wrote that the secret note said carpe diem or other thoughts and clichés that might pop into a dying person’s head (also wrong).

When the actual Eikemo note was removed from the safe and opened, it turned out that he had written a wonky World War II reference:

Two ME 110 Messerschmitt planes fly over Gandsfjord on April 9, bank west, and fire on Sola Airport.

Did any of the 2,000 self-described psychics come at all close? Was there at least one person who guessed something about fighter planes, or war, or Gandsfjord, or an airport, or April?

Nope.

Shortly before his death, Eikemo told a TV interviewer that

“The illusion that there’s life after death is used to take advantage of the survivors, the loved ones. I would like to show that that’s wrong.”

eszett

David Garrett

eszett: That’s a great story…I did something similar with a dear friend who died a long time ago. She and I had many drunken discussions on the meaning of life…She would acidly say “David…the meaning of life is that it has no meaning”. We agreed on a code word which had particular meaning for us..the name of a plant as it happens. If she “made contact”, she would tell the psychic the code word.

After she died I consulted several psychics (I was much younger then) in order to try and contact my friend. I was very careful not to give them any clues that would enable them to “cold read”. The closest was one psychic who correctly noted that my friend was “very close to the Maori people” (she was an elderly middle class white woman, but she was learning Maori when she died) and came up with a plant reference…but totally the wrong one, not even close.

Game set and match you would think? Despite that, I remain an agnostic who hopes the Christians are right…

eszett

The ‘new age’ stuff is Progressive. Ironically, superstition affects all people sorts, be it ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ alike (whether in the form of witch doctors, ‘healing energies’, or the Romanc Catholic church). The desire to ‘believe’ is very strongly rooted in the human psyche and I’ve never seen a particular variance based on ideological preference (intellectuals are generally less superstitious, but as there are an abundance of pseudo-intellectuals, even they are often tarnished in name).

If victims are not fully involved and agree with it then it is totally wrong. One positive possible benefit is that someones memory or conscience could be jogged and new information could be discovered.

Ole Bill Mole

Dave Mann

Its quite obvious to any sane person that this show is utter bullshit…. but its not merely ‘harmless entertainment’. Just imagine the pain and grief experienced by the loved ones, friends and relatives of those murder victims to see it all dragged out again and again.

This is totally sick and it demonstrates how TVNZ has sunk to the bottom of the cesspool in its search for ratings.

Boris Piscina

Liberty

Thank goodness for technology . There is no need to watch such crap.
The BBC and ITV provide a excellent range of History, Drama and yes real english
comedy. Which is sadly missing from the local providers.

KevinH

What amazes me about the show is the total belief of the psychics in their ability to communicate with the deceased.
It is of course total nonsense and you can’t help feeling that the psychics are mentally ill.

Shunda barunda

The show wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t popular.
I have to laugh at the people that rant on and on about Christianity being crap, love quoting atheists, yet go to spiritual fairs and pay mediums a lot of money for spiritual guidance.

backster

I enjoy the show. I haven’t seen any of the raked up grief and pain, instead a great deal of comfort and gratitude. Now that I know it is a con. I will try and work out how the two pschics selected from several hundred applicants are able to describe the victim from an upturned photo,describe the nature of his death and how and where it occured. Once I have worked it out I will change and watch “Buffy and the Vampires’ instead.” which I think might cause me more grie and pain.
Disc. one of the supporting cast is a friend of mine.
Kilgallon reads to me like the hardline socialist atheist that would like to control what suits his agenda for people to watch.

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic.”
Thomas Szasz
The Second Sin. New York: Doubleday, 1973https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

Shunda barunda

It feels lots better stone cold sober .
The rest of the world doesn’t share in your personal god delusion .
The god you claim to exist is totally incompatible with the god of other Christians on here yet alone the gods of other religions.
You are all wrong .
There probably is no God… now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Shunda barunda

A lot of that may very well be true, I just don’t differentiate between religion and other potential sources of wilful ignorance. There are plenty of examples of people that are fierce opponents of religion, but still just as fanatical as the worst aspects of it, an example being a large number of Mana party supporters last election.
So what is worse nasska? those of a religious bent that congregate in an organized and relatively benign manner, or angry political activists that think we are being sprayed with chemicals by jet airliners?

Could not be better thanks shunda .
When I get the pot thing it is a sure sign of a person losing the argument or an inability to come up with a decent counter point .
Soooo you think your god delusion is the same as say Scott’s, Reid’s or kimbo’s?
I very much doubt the detail of your individual ideas of Gods share much in common .

Shunda barunda

Griff, what do you think it is that causes humans to want to be in a state of religious or substance induced psychosis then? My opinion on weed has softened somewhat and to be honest, if people smoke it I don’t see it as such a big deal.
But I do wonder why people are drawn to messing with their mind in this manner, regardless of substance used.

UrbanNeocolonialist

Left Right and Centre

hmmm – it’s been going for bloody ages and now it’s back.
Who are these people ? This is their fulltime gig, is it ?
Funny none of these people ‘with the gift’ ever happen to have normal jobs. Could be wrong. Having the gift is their job. You never see – by day moon unit works in office admin / call centre / shop / dental nurse. Nah – the gift ‘only’ ever enters people not doing anything else eh ?